The benefits of a strong community are many
fold – a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, a growth in participation,
greater level of care for the local environment, shopping locally – strong and
resilient communities
Today the BBC publishes a report on loneliness in London. More than a quarter of Londoners say
they feel lonely often or all of the time, the same proportion said there was little or no sense of
community where they live and a third said they felt they did not know their
neighbours.
Last night I had the pleasure to talk about Lefi Ganderson and the Spirit of Seething in helping to combat isolation and encourage community.
Why
a little Goat boy is changing Surbiton.
Those of us who live in Surbiton know it as
a special place but those who don’t live here or know the area are filled with
a strange prejudice. Surbiton, or ‘Suburbiton’ as many call it, has become a
shorthand for all that is wrong with the perceived suburbs – parochial, petty
and stuck in the past. For others we are ‘The Good Life’ but always Margo and
Jerry never Tom and Barbara but many who live believe there is more of the
‘Good’s’ about us than the ‘Leadbetter’s’.
However, we do have problems and one of
those is the fact that we are a commuter town. For many Surbiton is the place where
they sleep – they work and have their fun in London and come back here worn out.
How many times have you heard people say “what’s great about Surbiton is we are
20 minutes to London and 20 minutes to the countryside”. Just think about that.
To describe where you live by the speed you can leave it seems odd. Wouldn’t it
be nice to have a town where we say “you should come to Surbiton, we are just
twenty minutes from London” etc.
Studies show that areas with a high
level of commuting can lose their sense of community and sense of ‘place’. In
2009 we started to see if we could encourage those people to get involved locally with some projects that would help people to mix, share and smile. To
attact their attention the ideas needed to be fun, sparky – possibly ‘mad’.
We worked to write a new ‘legend’, a local
folk tale. It is interesting that when people imagine a past they rarely think
of one that is bad. They want an idyllic past where good triumphs over bad,
where fair play and justice are seen to be done and where people live together
in harmony. That folk tale ‘Lefi Ganderson – the Goat Boy of Mount Seething’ is
a story of how one person can make a difference and that at strong community
that cares and shares is vital to a healthy life and healthy town. Imagining a
positive past challenged those involved to think about their lives today and
ask the question – ‘why can’t life be like that now?’
Over the last three years we have held a
wide number of regular events ranging from Surbiton Ski Sunday to the Seething
Festival, from the Community Sports Day to the Freshwater Sardine Festival,
from the Trycyclingathon to The King’s Soup and many more. The numbers
attending has grown massively year on year as have the numbers getting involved
in putting them on. We want to encourage people to think differently about
Surbiton, we want to help people smile and laugh, we want to make that positive
past exist now.
Our events are run by volunteers who give
their time to make a special things happen. Anyone can get involved in helping
and it doesn’t matter if you don’t think you have anything you can offer – it’s
about having fun.
But there is a serious side. We want to help
develop and support a community that is at ease with itself, a community that
wants to engage with each other. Our ambition is live in a town where, if you are
walking down the road, you are likely to see someone who you can wave or smile
at. When you know your neighbours, when you know people in your community, you
no longer just live in a commuter town – you are at ‘home’. Studies show that
people who engage with local activity have a greater sense of pride and
belonging and are ultimately more fulfilled.
We are delighted that people in Surbiton
are now inviting their friends to come and visit our events. It is a great
thing to be able to share the fun with other. Our visitors have an entirely
different perspective on Surbiton now, their innate prejudices have been
overcome. To them Surbiton is a fun place – and they get to appreciate our
great local restaurants, pubs and businesses as well. As one person said “I
will no longer call it Surburbiton but instead Superbiton”.
2013 will be a busy year for us. Just visit
www.seethingwells.org to see what we
have got planned and why not join in the fun. Everyone is welcome whatever your
age and whatever you think you can give in time, skills and energy. This is not
a club, it’s a community that wants to grow so that we can live up the phrase
‘Surprising Surbiton – a place we are proud to live’.
We know a lot of people don't understand what we are doing or why, indeed some people are against it but we hope that we are doing our bit to strengthen our community and strengthen Surbiton's pride. A phrase comes to mind – ‘Don’t talk to the
person saying it can’t be done – talk to the people who are doing it’, so in 2013 why not join
in and help.
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